DOES ART IMITATE LIFE OR LIFE IMITATE ART…IT’S BOTH, STUPID!
Art imitates life. Life imitates art.
Which is it? What is the answer to this debate? Being that this universe is polar in manifestation, the answer is both and neither. As usual, I find that most polarized issues are resolved somewhere in the middle ground.
Artists whether they realize it or not, shape the world. But my definition of ‘artist’ is a broader one than is common. For the sake of this essay, artist must be defined as anyone who receives a completely new vision of something and diligently pursues it to manifestation, come what may. The medium they choose is of no significance.
No matter how you look at it, artists are the only people who ever bring change the world, for better or worse. Someone who comes up with a helpful invention is an artist by this definition. But then again a dictator hell-bent for world domination is also an artist by this definition. After all, the dictator is also following a vision to manifestation just like the benign inventor. Obviously we must use our Free Will to choose carefully from among the ideas and visions we receive those we wish to pursue and manifest.
Even the practice of Magick has been called an art by the likes of Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune. The practice of magick is truly an art because it precisely follows the definition we have provided here. Magicians are perhaps the greatest artists of all because their ideas and visions concern the conscious itself and self-chosen creation of their very selves as well as the work they wish to do for the world, to enhance the world and hopefully leave it a better place upon their death. No except spiritual artists works with the inner and outer art quite like the practitioners of Magick, Indian Yogis, Tibetan Lamas, Muslim Sufis, Aborigine Shamans of all continents, etc.
It is the manifested visions and ideas of great dreamers that have any effect on the world. Their creations and artistic offerings irrevocably change the world. In this way, life imitates art. When their art is offered to all, it changes the world to make it more like the vision in the artist’s imagination.
When art imitates life, it seems to me to be little more than a lack of inner vision on the part of the artist. The artist is not really attempting to change anything but rather is collecting and then offering a snapshot of life for consumption. It seems to me that this kind of artist is more of a trumpeter calling attention to something that the rest of society may not see or doesn’t want to see. In my mind this person is less an ‘artist’ and more of an investigative reporter or an historian.
I don’t particularly like this kind of ‘art’ as one of its debatable results is that it often tends to just perpetuate exactly what the artist is reporting on by virtue of the fact that most people would experience the artwork that reinforces what they already know or suspect is out there, or else it introduces them to something completely new which forever implants a seed in their mind that what the artwork is representing is accurate and/or the ‘end all be all’ on the subject. Sad to say, but such is the reaction of the ordinary human mind of the average person when exposed to this ‘snapshot art’.
It is a rare work of ‘art imitating life’ that truly changes anything, again owing to the general disposition of the average human being who must be practically dragged kicking and screaming into a new world thru the artistic offering of the first sort (life imitating art).
Generally speaking from a Free Will perspective however, the ‘art imitating life’ type of work is the only one that allows the human being to truly choose their next action. As it is art of a historical or commentary type, one can experience the art and then choose whether or not to let the art have an effect upon the consciousness.
The “life imitating art” variety does not really offer much of a choice, if any. This is because of the very nature of this type of art is one of causing change upon us all whether we want it or not. The inventor’s art may be so revolutionary as to totally replace the technology it is meant to merely compliment or augment, the result being the unintentional total demise of the old technology which may still be very useful in some applications. The old technology may then fall away from the collective human memory, which could be to our detriment at some point in the future when that old technology would prove useful. Or in the case of the dictator, his vision is forced upon the public whether they want it or not (sometimes at the threat of death). In either example, the underlying commonality is the absence of free will choice.
Of course, seen from this perspective, I am also an artist of this second sort (much to my dismay). The fact is that what you are reading here is my own investigative artwork, a snapshot of life, my own creative offering for your mind to consume and digest according to your own level of understanding. I am offering to you my own perspective on some small part of life.
